USC Annenberg associate dean Martin Kaplan and the Los Angeles Times have called for greater community involvement in the design of the park planned for Grand Avenue in downtown LA. In an op-ed published in the July 17 Sunday LA Times, Norman Lear Center director Kaplan wrote, "You commuters and loft-dwellers, you pedestrians and picnickers, you Westsiders and Valleyites, you school groups and teachers, you protest marchers and soapbox orators, you in the pueblo and you in the 'hood: Don't you want a hand in making this park a magnet for you?" The newspaper responded that it "embraced the accompanying essay's call for a new round of brainstorming about what to do with the 16-acre park that will be the Grand Avenue project's centerpiece."
Kaplan editorial
LA Times response
Grand Avenue Intervention